Eric Brown's "Duels in the Sky"

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Most anybody is going to be biased, at least to a small degree, depending on their experiences. How much they can look passed their personal experience, especially when dealing with less than factory fresh examples of equipment may be a bit different.

As a very simple example I have a certain preference for a type of trigger action on target guns that was contrary to what a few companies were pushing. I like triggers that "break" and then stop moving in a very short distance, like a few thousands of an inch. A few very fine target rifles were coming with triggers that kept moving after the "Break" a 1/4 of an inch or more (they were adjustable) under the theory that the bullet would have left the barrel before the trigger (and the finger on it) reached the "stop" and therefore had less chance to disturb the shot.
I have no quarrel with the "Theory" but my own personnel experience with triggers ( a number of years worth) was such that it felt so strange that I found myself "snapping" my finger back off the trigger after it broke rather than continuing the follow through. I adjusted the over travel out of the trigger so it would conform to what I was used to and to be more consistent with my other guns.
I am not saying the factory was wrong, just that I had a bias towards a certain trigger "feel" and I was better off sticking to what I was comfortable with rather than changing.
Somebody else may have liked the factory set up just fine and gotten just as good results from it.
Some times the bias can come from something as undefinite as "feel", you can't put numbers to it or even describe it in a short sentence but it is there.
 
Problem is, most people's accusations of bias come from pretty flimsy sources - most have read one book and decried everything Brown has said, others are reacting to what they've read on the internet (surely not?!!!). Whilst I have not read Duel in the Sky, I have copies of most of his other books and can offer quotes directly from those books, as I have done, that often contradict what these people have written about Brown. For example; what his opinion on the Fairey Swordfish's career might be in Duel, it certainly doesn't match hs opinion of it in RN service during the war, based on Wings of the Navy. He's not all that complimentary about it, whereas regarding the Avenger, he has nothing but high praise for it. His assessments of the naval machines in Wings are pretty evenly spread, reserving equal measure of criticism and praise for US and British aircraft, but having favour for machines built by Grumman, so if there is a bias, it is for the products of a company that has earned it. There is also lots of compliments for German engineering, in fact considerable admiration for their machines, again, the bias is not where it might be expected.

I do ask people to quote directly from the books because it puts things into perspective, rather than hearing our take on it alone.
 
I never had in my hands Brown's books, I always read something in the magazines or on the internet. But my idea is that Brown was allowed to fly all those planes not for his personal pleasure and to write books but because being such an otstanding pilot top Brasses trusted on him to get a vision as true as possible of the capabilities of an airplane.

Certainly pilots are like Sopranos and then full of idiosyncrasies, and consider that in some Countries by mid-war an eager eye was kept on the end of the war and the profitable market of civil aviation, so certain propaganda facts cannot be underestimated (my engine and my planes are bigger and better than yours…)
 
Everyone has likes and dislikes. Brown may well be biased toward machines that fly like he likes a plane to fly, but he also gives a very succinct evaluation of each type. He DID fly combat, but not as much as dedicated combat pilots. Whereas he might have a different perspective than a dedicated combat pilot, he also very likely knows how a combat plane should fly and what characteristic to look for, if for no other reason than being around pilots in his own squadron who discuss the planes on a daily basis while at war.

Other highly-experienced pilots might come up with a slightly different list, but my bet is that most of the high-experienced pilots would generally rate the planes very similarly to Eric Brown, even if the order might slightly change. I seriously doubt that if another good pilot had the time in type Erich Brown had, that one would put some aircraft near the top while the other might put it toward the bottom. That is, the order might change, but not by much.

I have many more doubts about some of the US pilot evaluations. I have had the experience of asking some what was the best fighter and hearing the P-51. A further query indicated the P-51 was the only fighter he flew in combat. To me, that means he has no real basis for comparison because he never flew the enemy aircraft. Eric Brown DID.

Just because you survived and got home every time doesn't mean the other aircraft was bad. There can be many reasons why that would occur that do not preclude the other aircraft from being as good or better than your own mount.
 
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Hi Greg, as usual I agree with you totally.

One other thing to remember about 'Winkle" was that he was a shortarse.

He pointed out that a lot of his dislike of the Corsair was because it was hard for the "pint sized" to see out of! He also commented that the test pilot on the Corsair was over 6' and all the controls were a built accordingly. And yes, he should have been on a retainer from Grumman.

Not sure what his total score was, but shooting down Condors head on in the middle of the Bay of Biscay and flying Wildcats off a seriously tiny flat-top takes some doing. Also, he managed to take part in some of the 1943 fighter sweeps in Spitfires with the Canadians. So, quite a respectable combat career along with his test pilot work.
 
Hi ChrisMcD,

Thanks for the nod. It is sometimes hard for me to see how such diverse opinions can be formed.

One great example is the experience of the Finns with the Buffalo. They had a good experience with them and our own was horrible.

My take on that is that the Finns were good pilots flying against poorly-trained Soviet pilots in inferior aircraft using inferior tactics (on the Soviet side). That takes nothing away from the Finns, but I wonder if they would fare as well against ... say, the Luftwaffe, who were flying better airplanes and had good pilots and tactics. We can't know because it is a "what-if," and they didn't clash with each other in large dogfights. I could be wrong ...

People also forget, in general ... not everyone, how good the P-47 was and how much of the brunt of fighting it took, and came out looking pretty good. To me, the P-47 was a very good fighter with a different set of strengths than the P-51 had, but every bit as good in its own right.

But, I suppose if we all saw things the same, it really WOULD be a dull world, huh? I just don't see the point in getting hot anymore about it since the war is long-since over and decided.

I knew Eric was a short guy and, without going back and checking, I believe he stated that in his eval rating. I could misremember that ... it HAS happened before ... I HATE it when that happens.

Cheers to you, Chris.
 
GregP said:
One great example is the experience of the Finns with the Buffalo. They had a good experience with them and our own was horrible.
Click to expand...

Hello again Greg,

AFAIK the Finnish Buffalos were seriously lightened when all the carrier kit was offloaded, which must have helped.

But, I think an even more important aspect was that they were flying in a cooler climate and the Finns were good at keeping American engines well maintained.

More generally, someone mentioned that American engines tended to be better cooled than British ones - citing the good record of the P-40 family in North Africa - and I think that is generally true. But perhaps not for Brewster, since a lot of the Buffalo's problems in Asia/Pacific seem to be linked to overheating.

Finally, as I remember, Eric liked the Buffalo - "lovely aircraft to fly, but a rubbish fighter" or words to that effect!
 
It was Browns ability to land a plane on a carrier that got him involved with the RAE Some people are somehow destined to live different lives. Brown was told by no less a person than Udet to learn to fly and learn German, which he did. If you take all mention of aviation out of his life story, it is still a great story
 
ChrisMcD said:
Hello again Greg,

AFAIK the Finnish Buffalos were seriously lightened when all the carrier kit was offloaded, which must have helped.
Click to expand...

The Finish Buffaloes were essentially F2A-1s, There wasn't much to take out.
There were only 54 of these early aircraft built, the US got 11 and then turned over the other 43 to the Finns, The USN then sent 7 of the original 11 back to the factory to be rebuilt into F2A-2s.
One major difference between the two was that the F2A-2 and later aircraft (including British and Dutch) used an engine with reduction gear and larger, heavier propellers. The reduction gear on the engine was worth over 100lbs and the larger propellers were up to 75lbs heavier than the props used on the first 54 planes.
Change in weight of the engines/props required the fuselage to be shortened by 5in to maintain the center of gravity.

About all the Finns could take out was the tail hook, unless they took out the radio or oxygen equipment.
Many times the land based planes flew with less than full fuel tanks. Many weight charts list weights for 110US gallons of Fuel.

I am not trying to take anything away from the Finns, they did a fantastic job, but many times people try to paint the USN as incompetent because they used a heavier version of the Buffalo and people think if they left it alone it would have done much better. They come up with vague statements about unnecessary "stuff" the Navy added.
You can't add heavier engines, bigger props, more guns (F2A-1s originally flew with only two guns) more ammo, self sealing tanks, etc without also beefing up the basic structure.
The USN never flew the Buffalo in combat, only one squadron of the US Marines in two engagements, one against a flying boat. The chances of those Marine pilots flying F2A-1s with engines giving 750hp at altitude and using 9 ft dia props instead of the engines giving over 900hp at altitude and using 10ft 3 in props probably wouldn't have been any better.
 
I don't know about bombs and the Barracuda but the part of the specifications for the Avenger included spelling out the landing speed while carrying a torpedo.

Torpedoes are much more expensive than Iron bombs and storage aboard carriers was limited so jettisoning torpedoes as a matter of routine would not be looked at favorably by the bean counters.
 
That's true, the torpedoes might be worth more than the aircraft.
But even land bases weren't fond of people bringing bombs back.
 
There are other factors to be considered in the "discussion" about the various qualities of P-38, P-47, P-51 and Spitfire. Not being a student of the Spitfire I shall keep my comments to the American aircraft and tactics.

Many years ago I had the pleasure of an extended group conversation with a number of 57th FG pilots and ground crews. While I won't get into the lovely chatter of the pilots vs the ground crews, one thing stuck out: One of the pilots (can't recall his name off the top of my head, but his aircraft has been replicated in decals many times) stated that when they returned from their escort missions they were very seldom asked how many aircraft they shot down, but instead were asked how many enemy pilots they killed. This included shooting pilots in their parachutes once they had bailed out as well as killed in their aircraft. This was TOTAL WAR and it was fought as such. I don't know if the RAF ever initiated such a practice over the Continent, but it was definitely so in the AAF.

The P-51, while a superb aircraft, never was the end-all and be-all as it has been portrayed over the years. The first deep-penetration by U.S. fighters was by P-38s (55FG, as I recall), when they "didn't hear" the recall on the escort mission and went deep into Germany. When the first Berlin raids by the 8AF were flown in March 1944 the number of P-47 and P-38 escort units dramatically outnumbered those of the P-51, so both of those aircraft had plenty of range and capability to do the job. In the final analysis, I am of the opinion that the P-51 was an excellent escort fighter, and while the P-38 and P-47 were as well they were also much better suited to ground attack and interdiction than the Mustang - the P-38 due to its range, concentrated fire power, the fact that losing one engine didn't turn it into a lovely brick and the ability to carry fairly hefty bomb loads; the P-47 because of its amazingly rugged construction and ability to absorb damage (including the immortal R-2800's apparent near-indestructibility), ability to carry a substantial bomb and rocket load, and the extremely heavy firepower provided by the eight .50 caliber machine guns. While the P-51 could offer SOME of the same qualities, it was always very vulnerable to ground fire with a single liquid-cooled engine.

A final factor that I've never seen addressed is that of the supposed German ability to continue to produce aircraft throughout the war. I consider this HIGHLY suspect, and that for one specific reason: Each time a German aircraft was modified or rebuilt it was assigned a new Werke Number. This is born out by the evidence that years ago when an Fw-190 that had been in the U.S. collection of aircraft was refurbished, as they sanded it down they found SEVEN different markings and camouflage schemes had been applied and each one had a different WN and the aircraft was re-designated as a different type - A-7 vs A-8 vs etc, for example. Since this appears to have been the standard practice in Germany, one must question how many rebuilt and/or re-equipped Me-109s and Fw-190s received the same treatment. Unfortunately, I doubt the records remain to be able to track this down, but the fact remains that the German production numbers - at least in my mind - remain HIGHLY suspect.

I hope the above is of interest and welcome all feedback.

Respectfully submitted,

AlanG
 
I would agree to an extent. Imho the p51 was a game changer in the escort role. That's not to say the p47,p38 combination couldn't have done the job if the skies had been saturated with them the way they were with the p51. I believe and think the evidence shows they most definitely could have. It's just that if one looks at the difference in kill/ loss ratios for instance it seems alot more guys would have had to die to achieve the same objective in the escort role anyway. There is an excellent thread that addresses this verry topic called " most over rated fighter of ww2" i believe, wherein I got a bit of an education about this from some of the more knowledgeable members here( lots of good info on there).
I would agree however that the 38 and 47 are, depending on who one is listening to, often not given nearly there due and yes if the mission profile calls for ground attack in whole or in part my personal preference would be to be flying either the p47 or 38 for all the reasons you listed.
 
Interesting discussion, I have always enjoyed Winkle Brown's aircraft evaluations. As noted here, they are opinions and we all have them. I somehow accumulated about 23,000 hours in everything from Supercubs on glaciers to the 747-8 at almost a million pounds, so as a pilot his descriptions of handling qualities did mean something, a sort of unintentional sub language. Over the years I have also been involved in doing the flight dynamics for a huge variety of WWII combat aircraft for Flight Sim, if you are a flight simmer you have probably flown one of them at some time or another. Yes there are the statistics and performance numbers, given the era occasionally some salt grains must be taken. As interesting as the aircraft's good points, was replication of an aircrafts ill manners. The idea was to be a historian in replicating the experience of these fine aircraft.

As far as Brown's opinions, they are those of a pilot, a plane that makes you feel at one with it will always find a softer spot in your heart. I have favorites, sometimes ones that I as a pilot found a challenge. I have always enjoyed Brown's discussion. The Pacific and Europe were really two different wars.

Cheers: Tom
 
soulezoo said:
As I read that sentence, I was immediately reminded of Eddie Rickenbacker. Although to be fair, I was thinking of his WW I experience, not his Eastern Airlines experience, both of which are aviation. And the lost at sea experience too...
Click to expand...
Brown was in Germany at the end of the war and used to interview many high ranking Germans.
 


I would encourage both of you to search out the threads where drgondog has gone over this to the nth degree. I really have no beef with either of your posts (you and NiceOldGuy) except perhaps that the skies were saturated with Mustangs. As drgondog has pointed out many times, frequently (read the majority of the time) Mustangs were always fighting as the underdogs as far as numbers were concerned. Yes it's true, by 1945 there were hordes of Mustangs about, but from December '43 when P-51 ops began through June 6, the Luftwaffe was ALWAYS able to muster up far more interceptors than the 8AF could send long range escort, and hit the bomber stream at weak points v. a thinly stretch Mustang escort.

And at the time, the Lightning/Thunderbolt combination was not getting the job done, they simply didn't have the legs for it, and one thing that seems to get overlooked is most air combat in ETO initiated in the 20-25,000 foot band. RIGHT in the Mustangs wheelhouse, I'll let you extrapolate from there. Had it been a 30,000 ft+ campaign, that would be a different story.

He's (drgondog) posted numbers many times that pretty much point out it was the P-51 that sought out and pounded the Luftwaffe into the ground via long range escort and fighter sweeps. The Mustang also did A LOT of ground attack work, some of the numbers are surprising as to which aircraft had the highest and lowest loss rates/sortie. I'm too lazy to dredge them up but his posts are here with data to support his analysis.

Cheers.
 
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